The Cochrane Rangers' "Kick-Off to the Holidays"

Post-party synopsis:

At kick-off, club members established their positions on the playing field. Teammates strategically placed themselves in supporting positions. Officials seemed focused on keeping players well hydrated.

A chorus of fans known as "The Lovebullies" provided entertainment for our squad. By half-time a few substitutions were made. The fourth official noted determined runs to the bar, the dance floor, and to the washrooms.

It was a clean match, no penalties were awarded and there were no ejections from the game. However, there were a few warnings issued: the referee did not appreciate players tampering with their uniforms. Players in question cited wardrobe malfunction as an excuse and took the yellow cards in stride.

Our club party had representatives from the women's recreational league as well as players, managers, and coaches from competitive teams, board members, schedulers, field maintenance engineers, and equipment engineers... some of whom took along their significant others.

Dena Sykes took home the coveted Reindeer Dropping trophy for accurately calulating how many droppings were contained within the glass vessel. Madam Sykes ventured 1315 as the total, while the actual number was 1368. Droppings had been collected by field maintenance engineer Jo Daviduk.

THANK YOU TO THESE FAB FOUR:

1. The Cochrane Rangers Board for supporting the "Kick-Off to the Holidays".

2. The Lovebullies for fine entertainment (www.myspace.com/lovebullies).

3. The Rockyview Hotel for hosting our friendly.

4. Showcase Horse Products for Ranger scarf design creativity and donating prizes.

First Annual Christmas Party

Hopefully, you have all already heard about the Cochrane Rangers Kick off to the Holidays party on Dec 3rd at the Cochrane Hotel.

A brief summary of the event is:

Thursday, December 3, 2009 at 8PM at The Cochrane Hotel
featuring musical guests
The Lovebullies (www.myspace.com/lovebullies ) Tickets are $15 Significant others are welcome Appetizers will be served $4/drink all night

Please contact your team manager as they have been given tickets for your team.

If you have queries or comments, please let Sarah Tas know.
403-932-6028
slarivee at yahoo.com

We hope to see as many there as possible to celebrate the club and the holiday season.

Special thanks to Sarah Tas for planning this event.

The men's teams

Mens Div. 4B
submitted by Danny Easton on August 24, 2009

We started with a healthy mix of young players to complement our older veterans and focused on playing a system of possession and ball control, centered around solid defense. It seems to have worked as we have let in a division low of only 9 goals to date. We went 12 games before suffering our first loss. Currently we have a record of 10-1-3 and are sitting in first place. However, there is tough competition in our division and promotion will go down to the wire. All in all, it has been very enjoyable season with the high point being our come from behind win against Airdrie with 2 goals late in stoppage time.

End of Season Result
11 wins, 2 losses, 5 ties. Top scorers: Sam Bowyer, Jason Williamson, Jamie Easton

Over 45
submitted by Daran Fletcher, August 24, 2009

Those who know me, know that I call a spade a spade and so briefly, we had a poor season, with too few players. Although we had a large roster of players at the start of the season, when it actually came to match day, we all too often have been scrambling around to fill 11 places and substitutes have been a luxury item for us this year. We simply could not compete at the 'A' level with what we were putting out. We did manage a surprising win against the White Eagles and we gave the Rangers a surprise 2 - 2 draw after they had previously stuffed us 9 to 0, however these moments were all too infrequent throughout our season. Gunther Schutterle's first season as team coach was extremely commendable, he spent many hours on the phone and e-mail trying to scrape together a team to face our formidable and very competitive opponents. What did we learn from this year? . . . the 'A' league is too strong for our current squad of players, we should do better in the 'B' league which will surely be our destination next year.

Classic Premier's at Provincials

For the third consecutive year, the Cochrane Lady Rangers Classics (over 35) Premier team represented the Calgary Women's Soccer Association at the 2009 Outdoor Provincials held in Edmonton September 5 - 7.

Finishing the regular outdoor season with 8 wins, 4 loses and 2 ties and having the highest goals for/against average in the Premier division enabled the ladies to represent CWSA as the second place Southern Alberta team. The first game of the tournament saw a clean win of 2-1 over Edmonton's number one team, All The Rage. With a slight rain delay and resuming play on soggy fields in game two against Calgary's number one team the BMW Eagles, the ladies had to settle for 0 - 0 tie but an advancement nonetheless to the Gold Medal game.

In the Gold Medal match against Edmonton Polonia, the ladies outplayed the opposition and clearly dominated the game. A beautiful top corner goal by Polonia early in the first half saw the score remain at 1 - 0 and the final match resulted in the silver medal awarded to the Lady Rangers. To no one's surprise, the Overall Fairplay award was also earned proving once again that the Cochrane Lady Rangers are both respected and admired.

The team extends their thanks to Coach Rob, their sponsors; Cochrane Dodge, Gunther Schutterle, the Cochrane Rangers Soccer Club and their families. The ladies are looking forward to the Indoor soccer season where they have been promoted to the Classics Major division.

Recapping the 2009 outdoor season

Over the next few days I'll be posting some reports on how our teams faired this outdoor season.

Here is an update for the Women's Classic Major team courtesy of Sarah Tas...

It was the best of times... it was the best of times!

Cochrane Rangers Women's Classics Major team set a goal to be in the top four and did just that with an 8-7-1 record. Coach Terry Norman had newcomers: defender Sandra Rush, midfielder Tracy Taylor, and forward Nicole Angelozzi join a strong core of veterans. Team leading scorers Carolyn McLeod, Tanis Hagerman, and Jan Anderson-Smith led a steadily improving offensive attack set up by playmakers such as Karina Neill and Carol Robitaille supported by our dynamic defense of Dee Dee Cook, Cecily Woolrich, Sarah Tas, Sandra Rush, Heidi Packard and multipurpose Jill Uniacke. Barb Miller stood loud and proud in net. The team's line-up also boasted a few pirates and arm wrestlers.

The Vernon tournament was the usual good time. The team rafting trip from Ghost Dam to Cochrane will hopefully become an annual event. The team saw Edna Nystrom change to Cochrane Premier and was missed on the defensive line and in the social arena. Jo Daviduck was once again the critical organizer along with Sarah Tas who kept us well refreshed and socially connected. Coach T. is excited about the future possibilities as the team continues to improve individual confidence and advance effective team play.

Cochrane Lady Rangers take home Silver

On April 3rd 2009 the Cochrane Lady Rangers travelled to Lethbridge to take part in the 9th Annual Memorial Cup which is a soccer tournament that attracts talent from all over Alberta. Cochrane arrived on Friday night to face the Calgary Crusaders for the first of their four match ups. The message was sent out to the rest of the opposition as the Lady Rangers crusied to victory with a resounding 5-2 victory.
Saturday brought two new challenges in the form of the Edmonton Ice and the Calgary Furies. After falling a goal behind to the Ice, the Rangers battled hard and equalised early in the second half. With the match finely balanced, Cochrane broke free of the tight Edmonton defence and scored their second and winning goal. It was the perfect start to a tournament that has offered little reward to the Lady Rangers in recent years.
Pitted against another Calgary team on Saturday night, in the shape of the Furies, Cochrane were trying to extend their winning streak to three. The game started cautiously with both teams needing the win to stay in contention. The Furies took the lead early in the first half with a strong free kick but the Rangers responded quickly by stepping up the tempo of the game and it paid off when they squaked an equaliser over the line just before the half time interval. The second half was frantic and saw the Furies win an arguable penalty that was susequently converted, to Cochrane's dismay. That spelled the end of the winning streak as the Furies fired home two more quick goals before Rangers claimed a consolation late on.
Tied for second place, Cochrane Rangers knew that a win could only tie them for first at best, but a loss could see them fall as low as 4th. They fought hard against a very determined and skilled team from Medicine Hat, the Subway Strikers. The pace of the game was remarkable as two tired teams duked it out late on Sunday night. At half time the game looked over as Medicine Hat walked off holding a commanding two goal lead. With 25 minutes left to play, the Rangers conjured up some magic and played with immense heart as they lived the mantra "never give up". Rangers first goal of the game wasn't pretty but Laura Pecharsky pulled them back to within one of 'The Hat". It still looked all but over for Cochrane with time swiftly running out, but with only a few minutes remaining a sublime piece of skill gave Amy Paul the space she needed to slot home a beautiful left foot strike that tied the game and gave Cochrane Lady Rangers the second place overall finish that they deserved.

Squad (left to right)
Back Row: Jason Petrovic, Janeen Williamson, Sarah Williamson, Laura Pecharsky, Amy Paul, Alana Staples, Ayla Ownes, Tristan Norman
Front Row: Chesley Fricker, Megan Teghtmeyer, Shari Shigehiro, Lisa Murray, Sarah Stott and Goalie Stacey Wells

Rangers kick it in Vegas!

Cochrane Rangers recently organised two teams to travel and compete in a soccer tournament hosted by the Soccer Resort (socceresort.com). The tournament was held on March 6th and 7th in the Summerlins community which is on the Western side of Las Vegas, NV.

The tournament itself offers Men's, Women's, Co-ed, and Over 45's competition. We submitted two teams in the co-ed division which consisted of mainly Cochrane Rangers Players. We entered as the Cochrane Chugglers and the Cochrane Rangers. Both teams had a good tournament but appeared to suffer the effects of arriving 2 days early in the City of Sin as we both had a slow start. Both teams were placed in the same division and in a battle of the Cochranites, the chugglers triumphed 2-0 over the rangers. The Chugglers and the Rangers finished 4th and 5th respectively.
However, the Cochrane teams didn't go away empty handed as they picked up two team awards. The Chugglers received the award for the best Party team and the Rangers picked up the award for the Funnest team!

Cochrane Lady Rangers Open

In a challenging season of indoor soccer, the Cochrane Lady Rangers finished their season with heads held high finishing 3rd place overall in Division 4B of the CWSA soccer league
For the first time, Cochrane was host to half of the regular season games at Spray Lakes Sawmills Family Sports Centre.

The Lady Rangers experienced the joys of success after dominating the standings in first place for all of 2008 while recording only a single loss in 9 games, although 2009 was a different story. The competition upped their game and pushed the Rangers to the wire. Recording 12 wins in 18 games overall the Lady Rangers were vying for a playoff spot to catapult them back into Division three, a position that has not been held since 2006.
Winning their final game of the season, the Lady Rangers beat the Blizzard Angels 3-2 at home in front of a boisterous Cochrane crowd. Sadly it proved too little too late as fierce rivals the NCU Wildcats recorded a 4-1 victory over the Crusaders to leapfrog the Rangers into second place by only one point, in the process, earning themselves a playoff game to challenge for promotion to Division 3.
With pride and confidence brimming, the Lady Rangers will now be focussing their attentions to pre-season training in preparation for the upcoming outdoor season that kicks off in May. The club is pleased to announce that they are entering a new Ladies team into Division 6 in response to the growing levels of interest in community sport in Cochrane. We wish the new Cochrane Lady Rangers 3 all the best in their quest for success!

Classic Premier's at Provincials

Here is the schedule for our Classic premier ladies who will be competing at provincials this weekend in Calgary. (they are Calgary I)

Saturday, March 28 – Calgary l vs. Edmonton ll –
West Field @ 11:00
Saturday, March 28 – Calgary l vs. Calgary ll -
Beta Field @ 4:15

Sunday, March 29 – Calgary l vs. Edmonton l -
West Field @ 12:00

Evaluations

Please note evaluation times will be out by the end of the week.

Reminder that deadline for registering is March 15th.

March 2009

The AGM was last night at Tin Cup. Thanks to all those who attended and volunteered their time to help run the club. Notables are Tristian Norman and Juliett Kussman who are helping Karina Neill with the Treasurer position. Also Diane Templeton is taking over as secretary for the club. Everyone else is remaining as is. Thanks to Bernie Pedersen who was the secretary.

Please note that the deadline for the outdoor season is March 15th. Please download your registration form and hand in at SLSFSC.

The cost for the season was agreed upon at the AGM. It will $285.00.

Also I will be sending out passwords and usernames to the managers so that we can make better use of this blog.